Behind the powder blue building of the Bigfork Veterans of Foreign Wars post along Montana 35, a quiet transformation has been underway on the shaded hillside. What started as an effort to find a new home for a single monument has rapidly expanded into a multi-tiered, community-driven project to erect four distinct memorials dedicated to military veterans, fallen service members, and first responders.
The initiative aims to convert the gently sloping grounds behind the post into an open oasis for reflection, healing, and public remembrance. Local leaders and volunteers envision the finished park as a welcoming sanctuary where residents and visitors can pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in national tragedies and overseas conflicts.
A tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York City has already been constructed on the grounds. The monument features twin stone pillars designed to represent the fallen World Trade Center towers. Alongside this tribute sits the centerpiece that sparked the entire redevelopment: Bigfork's Benghazi Memorial, honoring the four Americans killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the United States Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
The Benghazi monument consists of a bronze eagle with a six-foot wingspan, frozen in a downward swoop and anchored permanently to a solid rock pedestal. It is recognized as the only known monument in the United States dedicated specifically to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Its presence in the small Flathead Valley town originated through an unexpected series of events initiated by Bill Thomas, a California paramedic and firefighter from Ventura County.
Thomas was moved to action after reading an article in the Bigfork Eagle reporting that the parents of Tyrone Woods had relocated to the area. Woods, a retired Navy SEAL and CIA operative, was among the four individuals killed in the embassy assault. Even though Thomas had no prior relationship with the Woods family, he felt a profound duty to ensure the tragedy and the lives lost were properly memorialized.
Teaming up with his local friend Doug Averill, Thomas helped create the bronze sculpture in 2014, and the memorial was subsequently installed on Averill’s private elk preserve. For years, Thomas’s nonprofit organization, the 9/11 Honor and Serve Foundation, conducted annual commemorative ceremonies on the property to mark both the 2001 and 2012 Sept. 11 anniversaries.
However, attendance at the annual ceremony dropped significantly during the 2025 event. Among the few individuals present was Ron Wenzel, who was serving as a police officer in New Jersey when the planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001. Having lost close personal friends in the attack, Wenzel later enlisted in the armed forces and deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, making the anniversary an especially poignant day for him each year.
The sparse turnout troubled Wenzel and left him questioning whether the public had begun to forget the solemn pledge to remember the fallen. Upon reflection, he realized that the low attendance was not due to a lack of community care, but rather the memorial’s secluded location. Situated on private land behind locked gates, the monument remained largely hidden from the public eye, leaving many area residents entirely unaware of its existence.
Determined to make the monument accessible, Wenzel, who serves as the quartermaster for the Bigfork VFW, pitched an idea to Thomas about relocating the Benghazi Memorial to the VFW post grounds. Moving the monument would permit anyone to visit and pay their respects at any time. Thomas welcomed the proposal, and Wenzel secured unanimous approval from the VFW board to begin the transfer.
The overarching vision for the memorial park took physical form during an on-site visit when Averill grabbed a napkin and sketched out a preliminary layout for the hillside. Transforming that simple drawing into reality required significant funding and equipment, which arrived through a substantial donation from Bigfork resident Skylar Johnson, owner of Markay Johnson Construction. As a former Army Special Forces soldier, Johnson wanted to honor fellow service members, providing backing that post leaders noted would have been impossible to raise on their own.
While the project initially focused solely on the Benghazi and 9/11 monuments, the scope expanded after other local veterans voiced a profound need for local spaces dedicated to mourning and reflection. During a monthly VFW meeting, a contingent of Vietnam War veterans became visibly emotional as they shared the financial and physical hurdles of traveling to Washington, D.C., to visit national war memorials, requesting the addition of a Three Soldiers statue on the hillside.
VFW leadership immediately committed to adding the Vietnam tribute to the plans, recognizing the vital role healing spaces play for local veterans. Mental health statistics from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs reveal that Montana faces a severe crisis, with a veteran suicide rate that is 1.5 times higher than the national veteran average and triple the rate found in the state's general civilian population.
Bigfork VFW Commander Steve Gordon emphasized the urgent necessity of providing a dedicated local sanctuary for former service members. Gordon noted that many veterans carry personal experiences of intervening to help struggling comrades during dark moments, making accessible, peaceful grounds an essential community resource for mental well-being and decompression.
Looking forward, the VFW is pursuing the second phase of the park, which involves applying to establish a Gold Star Family Memorial site to honor the families of military members killed in combat. At present, the only Gold Star memorial in Montana is located in Bozeman, requiring families in the northwest corner of the state to travel vast distances to visit a dedicated site.
Local leaders hope the new Gold Star installation will offer solace to area families, such as the relatives of Army Captain Edward Matthew Saltz, who in 2003 became the first Montanan killed in action during the Iraq War. Through this multi-monument sanctuary, the Bigfork VFW aims to provide a permanent, accessible haven of honor and healing for generations to come.
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